There are a number of telltale signs that could be telling a company that it should replace its current WMS.

• The current system has a short-sighted technology architecture.

In today’s distribution centres, which are under constant pressure to meet increasing internal performance standards and external customer demands, technology becomes outdated far more quickly than it used to.

You should also consider your use of operational workarounds. If you find yourself creating workarounds for new business requirements that the system cannot support, you should consider replacing it. The more processes you rely on that the WMS cannot control, the more difficult it will be to track them and maintain the accuracy of your data.

• The current system offers a limited functional footprint.

Does your WMS have the sophistication to allow your business to pursue continuous improvement initiatives? This often involves the addition of related functions such as slotting, labour management, voice picking and yard management. It might also include compliance-related functionality such as RFID. These types of add-on WMS functionality can help improve order and shipment consolidation, value-added service handling and quality assurance procedures. A WMS that provides built-in pathways for adjacent business process improvements will benefit your business most widely.

• Support for the current WMS is becoming increasingly expensive and hard to come by.

If your system happens to have been developed in-house, mindshare of the application is limited to in-house staff that will ultimately leave the company for a new position or retirement, taking with them irreplaceable technical know-how. Delaying a potentially complex upgrade to your WMS can require you to maintain older versions of related infrastructure such as databases, operating systems and other software, often at an uneconomical premium.

• The rigidity of the current system hinders the company’s ability to respond to change by incorporating new operational processes.

A principle weakness of many legacy WMS is the tendency toward rigid enforcement of predefined business processes. This does not allow your business to implement the unique processes that are likely a source of competitive differentiation. Your WMS should have a more modular approach and architecture that supports an evolutionary process in step with your business practices.

• The current system vendor is showing signs that it may not be around in the future.

Recent years have seen a lot of consolidation through acquisition among WMS vendors, and the erosion of viability of others. With the consolidation among system providers combined with an increasing vendor attrition rate, are you sure your current system provider will be around in five years? Even if your system provider is financially strong, your particular application may not receive adequate development funding in the future.

• The current system makes it difficult for the various applications to communicate with each other.

Are your WMS processes constrained by information silos and your systems’ inability to freely communicate?

A static WMS may pose severe interoperability problems as the necessity for sharing and synchronising operational data across business systems increases. To be able to externalise various pieces of your system is to be able to share and synchronize valuable operational data across business systems with service-orientated architecture (SOA).

• The user interface in the current system is difficult to use.

Many systems have outdated user interfaces and menu structures that make it difficult and time-consuming to complete tasks and access data. Your business can directly benefit from a system with an intuitive navigation format through increases in ease of use, ease of learning, user satisfaction and user productivity. A WMS that is easy to learn and use, and that can be easily configured to adapt to your distinctive terminology, can contribute to a decrease in the rate of user errors, training expenses and support calls.

• Couldn’t the company just upgrade its current packaged WMS?

Carefully consider your options and the potential ramifications before moving forward with an upgrade of your existing system. Traditional upgrades can be costly, both in terms of financial spend and time expended, and ultimately leave you in a position little-changed from where you started.

• What if the company doesn’t currently have a packaged WMS?

You may be using an internally developed or paper-based system in place of a packaged WMS. Using a homegrown system will likely make it difficult to communicate with standardised systems.

Larger companies in your supply chain may make technology and interoperability demands that your WMS cannot support. A parent company, or an influential business partner, may force updated technol¬ogy upon you if you do not have a standard system in place first.
Conclusion

Do you recognise any of these signs in your operation? Consider investigating the possibility of replacing your WMS with an adaptable, flexible system that can help position your business to better leverage your supply chain and take advantage of new business opportunities.